Industrial center
Not sure if it has been discussed before, but I think they should work as an AOE building, meaning that they only have an effect over a couple of starlane jumps. Say 3 jumps for the level

It's pretty darn easy to search our forums and find that "Yes", not only has it been discussed before, that's actually how they started out (or at least how they were when I got active here several years ago), 3 jumps AOE, and it was deemed to be too much micromanagement.

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Dilvish wrote:It's pretty darn easy to search our forums and find that "Yes", not only has it been discussed before, that's actually how they started out (or at least how they were when I got active here several years ago), 3 jumps AOE, and it was deemed to be too much micromanagement.

If there has been an in-depth discussion I'm not able to find it. There's a post from 2010 by Bigjoe5 in which he expresses he found the IC-AOE to be too much micro-management, and since then there's doesn't seem to have been any discussion; if I should be mistaken you're welcome to correct me. So I don't see why we shouldn't give this some thought.
Maybe 3 jumps is to little to start with, and it needed to be fine-tuned more.

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Geoff suggested, inpired by Cities: Skylines, to apply the IC effect only to a maximum number of supply-connected population (say 500, so that once your empire has 501+ you need to build a new IC).
That is intended to mitigate the advantage of bigger empires (which, with just one IC gets full benefit from the building and helps them steamroll over smaller empires).
Most posters liked the idea, some where ambivalent but saw the potential. No one discarded the idea from start. Several alternatives were suggested. Overall, the main problem didn't seem to be fear of micromanagement but problematic UI for the alternatives based on number of planets or distance from building. In the end the thread lost attention without any conclusion.

flap suggested the maximum number of jumps from the IC (as The Silent One here). That increases the strategic importance of where you place IC instead of no-brainer "far from enemy/homeworld".

flap wrote:this would work if there was an easy way on the map to see which systems have a bonus, and which don't.

And that seemed to be the problem: hard to implement a nice UI for this, as Vezzra and others pointed out. MatGB commented that before that time IC were causing effect only on planets within 500 uu, and that it had the same problem: hard to see what is already affected by the IC and where will be needed a new IC, so it was changed to full-empire effect.MatGB also asked about using number of planets instead of number of population (like max 10 planets per IC), but Vezzra pointed out that would be aprox. as hard as showing the effects for number of jumps or radius.

Recalling my own experience from city simulators and strategy games with aura effects, a possible way to improve UI could be to add a new window where you can select any of the researched AoE buildings (IC, SG, etc., one entry on the windows for each type), and then the planet where that building is built and those under reach gets a distinctive effect (e.g. using coloured, turning rings around the planet/s, similar to those shown in the UI when a planet is selected; and maybe something to the connecting lanes if the criterion is number of hops). The actual planet/s containing the AoE building get a darker/lighter colour from the planets under effect. If more than one building of each type is possible, each one and its AoE will be visible at the same time in the map.

Vezzra said about the UI problematic:

Finally, to make things even more tricky, keep in mind that we are dealing with user customizable content here. We can't just hardcode a toggle that queries ICs and then highlights all systems influenced by them. We'd need to come up with UI elements and an implementation that can handle all kinds of buildings that provide a bonus (that may even vary dependend on various factors) only within a certain distance.

I don't know if what I've suggested above does clash with this.

em3 suggested, to reduce microing for the option of each IC affecting a max. number of planets that would be selectable, to let the computer automatically select the planets that maximise production (i.e. highest population industry-focused planets). Geoff pointed out that it could bring extra microing by forcing the player to search for the highest population planets to set to industry focus.

The Silent One wrote:If there has been an in-depth discussion I'm not able to find it.

Orginally you just referred to "discussed" not "in depth discussion". There is at least one other post in that thread, by eleazar, where he expresses support for BigJoe's concern about micromanagement headaches from 3-jump effects. There is also some much older discussion of building effect types where it was noted that the X-jump types can be difficult to work with. And that's just what I find from a single search for "Industrial center" and "jumps", I expect that more would turn up from a bit more searching. (and it looks that while I was writing this Oberlus turned up some more of that)

So pretty clearly it used to be a "within X jumps" effect nearly the same as this proposed change, that was rejected as too much micromanagement headache, and there is at least some discussion on the forums (given that we know it was changed, it seems very likely there is more past discussion).

As a general matter, I had understood it to be a policy to ask people to try to do at least a little searching before proposing to change something, and try to point back to previous discussions, or else we get stuck wasting time ineffectively repeating the same old arguments, and perhaps lacking important information present in those older discussions. Sometimes it can still be worthwhile to revisit previous decisions, but better not done in ignorance.

However, I offer an apology for the brusqueness of my "It's pretty darn easy to search" lead-in.

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Dilvish wrote:As a general matter, I had understood it to be a policy to ask people to try to do at least a little searching before proposing to change something, and try to point back to previous discussions, or else we get stuck wasting time ineffectively repeating the same old arguments, and perhaps lacking important information present in those older discussions. Sometimes it can still be worthwhile to revisit previous decisions, but better not done in ignorance.

However, I offer an apology for the brusqueness of my "It's pretty darn easy to search" lead-in.

You do have a point, so I can understand that you were irritated. I was short on time, quickly writing down my ideas, hoping someone would remember previous discussions and provide a short summary, but I could've invested the time to do a more thorough search myself. So, my apologies for that.

But to sum the IC topic up, I understand there is some support for a localised effect for the IC and similar buildings, but it would need to be tied to some not-so-trivial UI changes. If we can get a consensus on that I'd open a feature request to keep the idea around.

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If we're going to change things, I'd rather keep the IC as is and change the 4 Generators to within X jumps, I think Gas Giant Generators would be more fun if they're within a couple jumps, Solar and Black Hole even moreso, and if Hyperspatial was similar to now you'd have a real cost/benefit tradeoff.

Whereas the IC is just a ministry complex and I'd want to keep some effects empire wide or limited in a different way.

(NB: one of the projects I need to spec out for balancing this cycle is the total production bonuses of various things, we're all agreed that the totals you can get to are way too big, but I don't see the IC as a problem compared to Black Hole, Pure Energy and Collective Thought)

Mat Bowles

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